Frugal Friday With Marsha -- Food Again

As far as being frugal, this past week has still been about our meals.
I did pull 13 lbs of chicken out of the deep freeze that's been there for a long time.  What I found was that most of it was freezer burnt.

Lesson #1--  Use the food that you have!

I cooked what I could of it in the crockpot, which was still quite a lot.  We had chicken that night then we pulled the rest of the chicken off the bones and it's not in the freezer ready for 2 meals-- a casserole, and chicken fajitas.




I've thought a lot this last week about my mom and how she always has done things at meals.  In my adult life we have ended up living with her for short periods and she is still the same.
She pulls out all leftovers every meal---until they are gone.

Lesson #2-- Use leftovers instead of letting them turn into science experiments in the refrigerator.

Rather than pull out leftovers each meal like my mom, I used to freeze leftovers.  Veggies were put into a larger container in the freezer and used with roast or stew in the crock pot.  Other foods were frozen like they were.    I would then pull them all out twice a month for a banquet meal.   The kids actually loved when I did this and getting to choose what they wanted to eat from many things.

Lesson #3--  No matter what, just try to not let food go to waste, PERIOD!





Whichever way I choose to do it, making sure leftovers get eaten or freezing the leftovers, we must adhere to lesson #3.
Even when (or if) we get our financial life back in order, we still need to not waste anything.


Our local food bank allows people to come for food every 2 months.  It's been quite a bit longer than that since I had went, and I made an appointment.  You would never guess that for meat, we got mostly chicken.   I can be ok with that though because I do love chicken, and there are so many different ways to fix it.

I also got in a bit of money and was able to spend $16 at the grocery store.  I bought tortillas, milk, and cheese along with some non-food items.  I was looking at Sargento cheese slices for a 25 cent rebate on ibotta.  I had a 50 cent coupon, but that only took Sargento down to $3 a package.  I seen that the store brand of the sliced cheese was on sale for $1.88 and had 6 more slices.  I opted to be the wiser shopper and get the store brand.

Well, that's it for this week.  Will next week be more adventures in food, or will I come up with something else to talk about?

Frugal Friday with Marsha 1/23/15

We've made it to another Friday.  How has your week been?
This week I thought I would give you a run down of the frugal/money saving things that I've done this past week.


I've started buying coupon inserts through a coupon friend for .40 each insert. I'm buying in sets of 5.  This is giving me the ability to take better advantage of the sales. 
I've been able to get Glade candles for just .33 each after coupon, clearance, and the cartwheel app at Target.
The dollar store sell the Lance cracker 6 packs for just $1 and we have $1 coupons.  This means paying just sales tax and we have snacks in the house.  We've had a huge shortage on anything to just snack on for some time now.

I have been blessed many times over the years since I started sewing and quilting to be given fabrics, whether full pieces, scraps, and such.  This week I took the rug I am making to show my progress when I attended my stitch group.  It so happened that one of the other ladies in the group had picked up this balls of fabric strips out of a free box somewhere she had been that very morning.  She took them knowing that she would find someone who could use them.  Little did she know she would find someone that same day!

I'm not too proud to tell you that I went to the food bank this week.  Our food bank allows you to go once every 2 months.  I will say that in my adult lifetime, this is only the 4th time I've ever gone to the food bank.  I'm glad it's there.  Finances are not as such that we can go do any "real" grocery shopping and hasn't been for a long time.  We can rest easy this week now knowing that we have meat for our meals, plus the other foods that we were also given.

On the note of the grocery shopping, I'm still shopping with the $5 Target and Walmart cards that I am earning from swagbucks and PerkTV.     Today I am using those to buy a block of cheese to take as my part of the carry in dinner we will be having for quilt guild on Monday.  I am also buying Bushe's baked beans as our part of a carry in dinner at church on Sunday (using $1 coupons on the beans).  I will also be getting a gallon of milk for the week and my box of Carnation Instant Breakfast (a $2 coupon on the Carnation printed from swagbucks is saving me $2, but also earning me 10 swagbucks for using it).

If you have a Kroger owned store in your area, don't forget that today is Friday to go in and add the freebie to your card today.  My mom and I will be stopping in to get our freebies.  This week is a

Free Chobani Simply 100 Greek Yogurt (5.3oz) .   Last week was a free Muller yogurt and the week before that a free Power Bar.  We have all 3 things to pick up today!

My husband is finally taking food from home for his lunches at work.  Most of the time he takes leftovers from supper.  If we don't have something leftover he is fixing himself a sandwich, taking a banana, and thanks to the Lance coupons, a package of crackers.

I look forward to seeing what you have posted this last week!

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